Beowulf & Grendel
Encyclopedia
Beowulf & Grendel is a 2005 film loosely based on the Anglo-Saxon epic poem
Beowulf
. Filmed in Iceland
and directed by Sturla Gunnarsson
, it stars Gerard Butler
as Beowulf, Stellan Skarsgård
as Hrothgar, Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson
as Grendel
and Sarah Polley
as the witch Selma. The film is a cooperative effort between Eurasia Motion Pictures (Canada) Spice Factory (UK), and Bjolfskvida (Iceland). The screenplay was written by Andrew Rai Berzins. The soundtrack was composed by Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson
. The story takes place in the early half of the sixth century AD in what is now Denmark
, but the filming of the movie in Iceland provided many panoramic views of that country's landscape.
While some of the film remains true to the original poem, other plot elements deviate from the original poem (three new characters, Grendel's father, the witch Selma, and Grendel's son are introduced, and several related plot points were developed specifically for the film).
In 2006, a documentary of the making of Beowulf and Grendel called Wrath of Gods
was released and went on to win six film awards in Europe and the U.S..
, and his young son across a large open field until father and son find themselves on the edge of deep cliff overlooking a beach and a large sea. The father directs his young son, Grendel
, to climb down and hide from the attackers' view. The Danes shoot the father dead with their arrows and his dead body plunges down onto the beach far below. The Danish king walks towards the cliff edge and sees the young Grendel hanging but chooses to spare him. Later, Grendel is on the beach below and finds his father's body. After failing to move the large and heavy corpse, the boy takes a sword and cuts the head off to take it home.
Many years later, the severed (and mummified) head is inside a cave where the boy Grendel has grown up to be as large and burly as his father. Grendel bloodies his own forehead with stones to express his vengeful anger towards the Danes and the beginning of his own murderous campaign of revenge.
When Hrothgar finds twenty of his warriors killed inside his great hall, the Danish king falls into a depression. Beowulf
, with the permission of Hygelac
, king of Geatland
, sails to Daneland with thirteen Geats on a mission to slay Grendel for Hrothgar.
The arrival of Beowulf and his warriors is welcomed by Hrothgar, but the king's village has fallen into a deep despair and many of the pagan villagers convert to Christianity at the urging of an Irish monk. While Grendel does go into Hrothgar's village during the night, he flees rather than fight.
Beowulf learns more about Grendel from Selma the witch and seer, who tells Beowulf that Grendel will not fight him because Beowulf has committed no wrong against him. A villager, recently baptized and thus now unafraid of death, leads Beowulf and his men to the cliff above Grendel's cave, but without a rope they are afraid to die descending to the cave itself, and turn back without even seeing the cave. When that villager is found broken and dead, Beowulf and his men return with a rope and gain entry to Grendel's secret cave. Grendel being absent, one of Beowulf's vengeful men mutilates the mummified head and shrine of Grendel's slain father.
That night, Grendel attacks Beowulf and his men while they sleep in Hrothgar's great hall, killing the Geat who desecrated his father's head and then, revenge satisfied, leaps out from the second story, but is caught in a trap by Beowulf, leaving Grendel hanging by his right arm. Grendel, refusing capture, escapes by hacking off his own arm. Grendel, bleeding severely, manages to reach the same beach where he had once found his father's slain corpse and wades into the water, where he dies, his body claimed by a mysterious webbed hand. Hrothgar admits to Beowulf that he had killed Grendel's father for stealing a fish but had spared the child-troll Grendel out of pity.
There is great celebration in the hall of Hrothgar, and the king's mood has been livened up by the defeat of Grendel, whose severed arm is kept by the Danes as a trophy.
In revealing more about Grendel's nature, Selma recounts how Grendel had once visited Selma's hut and clumsily raped her and has protected her since that day, troubling Beowulf all the more. Yet, that does not stop him from moving forward to kiss Selma, who deftly slaps him for tying her up earlier in the film, which he did in an attempt to get her to lead him to Grendel. Nevertheless, she then pulls his head forward and kisses him, quickly initiating and taking the lead in their lovemaking as she straddles him down on her bed.
The Danes are later attacked by Grendel's mother
, the Sea Hag. Beowulf finds her lair, where she placed Grendel's dead body along with a pile of treasure, and slays Grendel's mother with a sword from this pile. Beowulf realizes the battle has been watched by a strange young boy with red hair, who is Grendel and Selma's child.
Beowulf, with Grendel's son watching from the shelter of the rocks, buries Grendel and builds him a marker, honouring him. Shortly thereafter, Beowulf and his band of Geats leave Daneland by ship but not before warning Selma that she must continue to hide her son, lest the Danes hunt him down as they did his father.
Beowulf as presented constantly doubts the Danes' assertion (and later, that of his own men) that the troll is a monster of all encompassing evil. His insight tells him that Grendel is a being of some intelligence and is operating against an evil done against him, which is confirmed by the king's admission to Beowulf that he slew Grendel's father (And yet, Beowulf notes, Grendel does not attack the king himself, implying a complex ethical and moral code. Grendel takes revenge against the Danes, but will not kill the Dane who spared his life). Beowulf deeply regrets the need to destroy Grendel, and yet accepts the fact that in his world, it must be done.
Another theme of the film is that of Christianity's introduction into pagan civilization. As Grendel’s reign of terror continues with no end in sight, the people of the village turn away from their Norse gods, which seem to offer no help, and who, they believe, expect the Danes to fight and struggle unto death, to the Christian Jesus, who they are told forgives all and, from Beowulf’s point of view, expects nothing.
Towards the end of the film, when the King and Beowulf argue the good of the Danes’ conversion to Christ, the King points out that the Christians promise heaven. He asks Beowulf, testing him, if he worries where he’s going after his death. He imagines he’s going “where he’s sent,” a wry admission that he recognizes his impotence to actually change the situation he is in, but unlike the Danes, he accepts it. Butler’s Beowulf would prefer to live in a world where Grendel is left alone.
and 48% at Rotten Tomatoes
. Most critics praised the film's cinematography, its brutal action sequences, and aspects of its revisionist script, but criticised the dialogue and some of the acting.
William Arnold
of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
writes, "The film's near-fatal flaw is its dialogue, which had to be invented wholesale from the Old English text. It alternates between sounding stagy and anachronistically hip -- with more overuse of the F-word than any two Samuel L. Jackson
movies. It's a big mistake." Nevertheless, Arnold eventually recommends the film for "keeping its strain of rowdiness and violence in control, and lending the tale the kind of somber respect filmmakers tend to give adaptations of Shakespeare and Dickens."
Lisa Schwarzbaum
of Entertainment Weekly
commends director Gunnarsson for his "[focus] on the more interesting psychology of tribalism." Bill Gallo
of Village Voice writes, "It's good, bloody fun that stirs the intellect whenever it feels like it, and as a swashbuckler, the dead-game Butler outswings just about anyone in Troy
or Kingdom of Heaven
or Tristan & Isolde
."
The film has at least one major champion in Danél Griffin of Film as Art (for University of Alaska Southeast
), who claims it "exists on the same plane of unadulterated genius as other mad, operatic visions like von Stroheim’s Greed
, Coppola’s Apocalypse Now
, Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo
, Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey
, and Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America
." He hails the film for its reinterpretation of the poem as "a study of [the] sharp contrast [between] our ego-inflated perception versus the more humbling reality of our existence. ... Gunnarsson and Berzins’ ultimate conclusion is that we are creatures of the world, not creatures above or below it, and for all of our theology and philosophy and courage and civility, there is Grendel’s severed arm nailed to our castle, and this trophy makes us feel good about ourselves. Its gory depravity representing our feelings of triumph transforms into one of the most revealing metaphors in all of literature."
Other critics are less forgiving. Mick LaSalle
of the San Francisco Chronicle
says, "Imagine the worst Deadwood
episode ever, and you'll get an idea of the general tone of Beowulf & Grendel, which is full of anachronistic cursing, tortured syntax, dark humor and lots of hairy, homely, filthy-looking people. The filmmakers get their point across in about 30 minutes, leaving 70 more for severed heads and period charm. There's no charm." Todd McCarthy
of Variety (magazine)
agrees, writing, "Director Sturla Gunnarsson seems aware of the savagery intrinsic to the story, but is unable to mine it deeply, proving too genteel in the end to make a genuinely creepy or disturbing film." Liam Lacey of The Globe and Mail
concludes, "The movie is a lumbering and ludicrous mess."
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
. Filmed in Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
and directed by Sturla Gunnarsson
Sturla Gunnarsson
Sturla Gunnarsson is a Canadian film director.Gunnarsson was born in Iceland in 1951. He moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, with his parents when he was seven years old. As he grew up he became interested in filmmaking and went to the University of British Columbia where he completed...
, it stars Gerard Butler
Gerard Butler
Gerard James Butler is a Scottish actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television. A trained lawyer, Butler turned to acting in the mid-1990s with small roles in productions such as the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies , which he followed with steady work on television, most notably in...
as Beowulf, Stellan Skarsgård
Stellan Skarsgård
Stellan John Skarsgård is a Swedish actor, known internationally for his film roles in Angels & Demons, Breaking the Waves, The Hunt for Red October, Ronin, Good Will Hunting, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist,...
as Hrothgar, Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson
Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson
Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson is an Icelandic actor who has worked extensively in Icelandic cinema. He is perhaps best known for his roles in Friðrik Þór Friðriksson's Angels of the Universe and Baltasar Kormákur's Jar City...
as Grendel
Grendel
Grendel is one of three antagonists, along with Grendel's mother and the dragon, in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf . Grendel is usually depicted as a monster, though this is the subject of scholarly debate. In the poem, Grendel is feared by all but Beowulf.-Story:The poem Beowulf is contained in...
and Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley is a Canadian actress, singer, film director, and screenwriter. Polley first attained notice in her role as Sara Stanley in the Canadian television series, Road to Avonlea...
as the witch Selma. The film is a cooperative effort between Eurasia Motion Pictures (Canada) Spice Factory (UK), and Bjolfskvida (Iceland). The screenplay was written by Andrew Rai Berzins. The soundtrack was composed by Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson
Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson
Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson , also known as HÖH , is a musician, an art director, and allsherjargoði of Ásatrúarfélagið ....
. The story takes place in the early half of the sixth century AD in what is now Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, but the filming of the movie in Iceland provided many panoramic views of that country's landscape.
While some of the film remains true to the original poem, other plot elements deviate from the original poem (three new characters, Grendel's father, the witch Selma, and Grendel's son are introduced, and several related plot points were developed specifically for the film).
In 2006, a documentary of the making of Beowulf and Grendel called Wrath of Gods
Wrath of Gods
Wrath of Gods is a documentary directed by Jon Gustafsson. It tells the story of the dramatic circumstances Canadian director Sturla Gunnarsson and his crew had to go through during the making of the film Beowulf & Grendel...
was released and went on to win six film awards in Europe and the U.S..
Plot
Hrothgar, king of Daneland, and a group of mounted and helmeted warriors chase a large and burly man, whom they consider a monstrous trollTroll
A troll is a supernatural being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. In origin, the term troll was a generally negative synonym for a jötunn , a being in Norse mythology...
, and his young son across a large open field until father and son find themselves on the edge of deep cliff overlooking a beach and a large sea. The father directs his young son, Grendel
Grendel
Grendel is one of three antagonists, along with Grendel's mother and the dragon, in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf . Grendel is usually depicted as a monster, though this is the subject of scholarly debate. In the poem, Grendel is feared by all but Beowulf.-Story:The poem Beowulf is contained in...
, to climb down and hide from the attackers' view. The Danes shoot the father dead with their arrows and his dead body plunges down onto the beach far below. The Danish king walks towards the cliff edge and sees the young Grendel hanging but chooses to spare him. Later, Grendel is on the beach below and finds his father's body. After failing to move the large and heavy corpse, the boy takes a sword and cuts the head off to take it home.
Many years later, the severed (and mummified) head is inside a cave where the boy Grendel has grown up to be as large and burly as his father. Grendel bloodies his own forehead with stones to express his vengeful anger towards the Danes and the beginning of his own murderous campaign of revenge.
When Hrothgar finds twenty of his warriors killed inside his great hall, the Danish king falls into a depression. Beowulf
Beowulf (hero)
Beowulf is a legendary Geatish hero and later turned king in the epic poem named after him, one of the oldest surviving pieces of literature in the English language.-Etymology and origins of the character:...
, with the permission of Hygelac
Hygelac
Hygelac was a king of the Geats according to the poem Beowulf. He was the son of Hrethel and had brothers Herebeald and Hæthcyn. His sister was married to Ecgtheow and had the son Beowulf. Hygelac was married to Hygd and they had the son Heardred, and an unnamed daughter who married Eofor...
, king of Geatland
Götaland
Götaland , Gothia, Gothland, Gothenland, Gautland or Geatland is one of three lands of Sweden and comprises provinces...
, sails to Daneland with thirteen Geats on a mission to slay Grendel for Hrothgar.
The arrival of Beowulf and his warriors is welcomed by Hrothgar, but the king's village has fallen into a deep despair and many of the pagan villagers convert to Christianity at the urging of an Irish monk. While Grendel does go into Hrothgar's village during the night, he flees rather than fight.
Beowulf learns more about Grendel from Selma the witch and seer, who tells Beowulf that Grendel will not fight him because Beowulf has committed no wrong against him. A villager, recently baptized and thus now unafraid of death, leads Beowulf and his men to the cliff above Grendel's cave, but without a rope they are afraid to die descending to the cave itself, and turn back without even seeing the cave. When that villager is found broken and dead, Beowulf and his men return with a rope and gain entry to Grendel's secret cave. Grendel being absent, one of Beowulf's vengeful men mutilates the mummified head and shrine of Grendel's slain father.
That night, Grendel attacks Beowulf and his men while they sleep in Hrothgar's great hall, killing the Geat who desecrated his father's head and then, revenge satisfied, leaps out from the second story, but is caught in a trap by Beowulf, leaving Grendel hanging by his right arm. Grendel, refusing capture, escapes by hacking off his own arm. Grendel, bleeding severely, manages to reach the same beach where he had once found his father's slain corpse and wades into the water, where he dies, his body claimed by a mysterious webbed hand. Hrothgar admits to Beowulf that he had killed Grendel's father for stealing a fish but had spared the child-troll Grendel out of pity.
There is great celebration in the hall of Hrothgar, and the king's mood has been livened up by the defeat of Grendel, whose severed arm is kept by the Danes as a trophy.
In revealing more about Grendel's nature, Selma recounts how Grendel had once visited Selma's hut and clumsily raped her and has protected her since that day, troubling Beowulf all the more. Yet, that does not stop him from moving forward to kiss Selma, who deftly slaps him for tying her up earlier in the film, which he did in an attempt to get her to lead him to Grendel. Nevertheless, she then pulls his head forward and kisses him, quickly initiating and taking the lead in their lovemaking as she straddles him down on her bed.
The Danes are later attacked by Grendel's mother
Grendel's mother
Grendel's mother is one of three antagonists in the work of Old English literature of anonymous authorship, Beowulf . She is never given a name in the text....
, the Sea Hag. Beowulf finds her lair, where she placed Grendel's dead body along with a pile of treasure, and slays Grendel's mother with a sword from this pile. Beowulf realizes the battle has been watched by a strange young boy with red hair, who is Grendel and Selma's child.
Beowulf, with Grendel's son watching from the shelter of the rocks, buries Grendel and builds him a marker, honouring him. Shortly thereafter, Beowulf and his band of Geats leave Daneland by ship but not before warning Selma that she must continue to hide her son, lest the Danes hunt him down as they did his father.
Cast
- Gerard ButlerGerard ButlerGerard James Butler is a Scottish actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television. A trained lawyer, Butler turned to acting in the mid-1990s with small roles in productions such as the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies , which he followed with steady work on television, most notably in...
- Beowulf - Stellan SkarsgårdStellan SkarsgårdStellan John Skarsgård is a Swedish actor, known internationally for his film roles in Angels & Demons, Breaking the Waves, The Hunt for Red October, Ronin, Good Will Hunting, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist,...
- King HrothgarHroðgarHroðgar, King Hroþgar, "Hrothgar", Hróarr, Hroar, Roar, Roas or Ro was a legendary Danish king, living in the early 6th century.... - Sarah PolleySarah PolleySarah Polley is a Canadian actress, singer, film director, and screenwriter. Polley first attained notice in her role as Sara Stanley in the Canadian television series, Road to Avonlea...
- Selma - Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson - GrendelGrendelGrendel is one of three antagonists, along with Grendel's mother and the dragon, in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf . Grendel is usually depicted as a monster, though this is the subject of scholarly debate. In the poem, Grendel is feared by all but Beowulf.-Story:The poem Beowulf is contained in...
- Tony CurranTony CurranAnthony "Tony" Curran is a Scottish actor.Curran was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He is an alumnus of Holyrood Secondary School and is a graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama....
- Hondscioh - Steinunn Ólína Þorsteinsdóttir - Queen WealhtheowWealhþeowWealhþēow is a legendary queen of the Danes in the Old English poem, Beowulf, first introduced in line 612.-Character overview:She is the Wulfing queen of the Danes. She is married to Hroðgar, the Danish king and is the mother of sons Hreðric and Hroðmund and also of daughter Freawaru. The meaning...
- Martin DelaneyMartin DelaneyMartin Delaney may refer to:* Martin Delaney , HIV/AIDS treatment advocate* Martin Delaney , British actor...
- Thorfinn - Jon GustafssonJon GustafssonJon Gustafsson is an Iceland born film director. Best known for directing the Canadian documentary film Wrath of Gods, starring Gerard Butler, Wendy Ord, Sarah Polley, Paul Stephens and Sturla Gunnarsson. He grew up in Iceland where he started his career as a television performer before studying...
- Warrior
Themes
The film attempts to retell the classic tale of fantasy as an historical epic. And in fact, the film never makes clear whether Grendel and his father are actually "trolls," monsters from Norse mythology, or simply human beings with monstrous deformities (although it seems obvious that the sea-hag's appearance and abilities make her distinctly inhuman). Andrew Rai Berzins, in his blog, states that he intended that Grendel be less of a flesh-eating troll and more of a sasquatch; that is to say, something that may exist in the real world. Other viewers feel it is obvious that Grendel and his father are remnants of Neanderthals, who may indeed have survived in isolated populations in the far north.Beowulf as presented constantly doubts the Danes' assertion (and later, that of his own men) that the troll is a monster of all encompassing evil. His insight tells him that Grendel is a being of some intelligence and is operating against an evil done against him, which is confirmed by the king's admission to Beowulf that he slew Grendel's father (And yet, Beowulf notes, Grendel does not attack the king himself, implying a complex ethical and moral code. Grendel takes revenge against the Danes, but will not kill the Dane who spared his life). Beowulf deeply regrets the need to destroy Grendel, and yet accepts the fact that in his world, it must be done.
Another theme of the film is that of Christianity's introduction into pagan civilization. As Grendel’s reign of terror continues with no end in sight, the people of the village turn away from their Norse gods, which seem to offer no help, and who, they believe, expect the Danes to fight and struggle unto death, to the Christian Jesus, who they are told forgives all and, from Beowulf’s point of view, expects nothing.
Towards the end of the film, when the King and Beowulf argue the good of the Danes’ conversion to Christ, the King points out that the Christians promise heaven. He asks Beowulf, testing him, if he worries where he’s going after his death. He imagines he’s going “where he’s sent,” a wry admission that he recognizes his impotence to actually change the situation he is in, but unlike the Danes, he accepts it. Butler’s Beowulf would prefer to live in a world where Grendel is left alone.
Reception
The film received generally mixed and average reviews from professional critics; it scored 53% at MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
and 48% at Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. Most critics praised the film's cinematography, its brutal action sequences, and aspects of its revisionist script, but criticised the dialogue and some of the acting.
William Arnold
William Arnold
William Arnold was one of the founding settlers of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and with his sons was among the wealthiest people in the colony. He was raised and educated in England where he was the warden of St. Mary's, the parish church of Ilchester in southeastern...
of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...
writes, "The film's near-fatal flaw is its dialogue, which had to be invented wholesale from the Old English text. It alternates between sounding stagy and anachronistically hip -- with more overuse of the F-word than any two Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel Leroy Jackson is an American film and television actor and film producer. After becoming involved with the Civil Rights Movement, he moved on to acting in theater at Morehouse College, and then films. He had several small roles such as in the film Goodfellas before meeting his mentor,...
movies. It's a big mistake." Nevertheless, Arnold eventually recommends the film for "keeping its strain of rowdiness and violence in control, and lending the tale the kind of somber respect filmmakers tend to give adaptations of Shakespeare and Dickens."
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum is an American film critic. She joined Entertainment Weekly as film critic in the 1990s. She has been featured on CNN, co-host on Siskel & Ebert At the Movies as well as a cultural, theater and television reviewer....
of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
commends director Gunnarsson for his "[focus] on the more interesting psychology of tribalism." Bill Gallo
Bill Gallo
Bill Gallo was a cartoonist and newspaper columnist for the New York Daily News.-Biography:Gallo was born in Manhattan, the son of a journalist father who died when Gallo was 11 years old. Gallo's mother and father were natives of Spain. When Gallo graduated from high school in 1941, he landed a...
of Village Voice writes, "It's good, bloody fun that stirs the intellect whenever it feels like it, and as a swashbuckler, the dead-game Butler outswings just about anyone in Troy
Troy (film)
Troy is a 2004 epic war film written by David Benioff and directed by Wolfgang Petersen based on the events of the Trojan War. Its cast includes Brad Pitt as Achilles, Eric Bana as Hector.It was nominated for the Academy Award for Costume Design.-Plot:...
or Kingdom of Heaven
Kingdom of Heaven (film)
Kingdom of Heaven is a 2005 epic action film directed by Ridley Scott and written by William Monahan. It stars Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, Marton Csokas, Brendan Gleeson, Kevin McKidd, Alexander Siddig, Ghassan Massoud, Edward Norton, Jon Finch, Michael Sheen and Liam...
or Tristan & Isolde
Tristan & Isolde (film)
Tristan & Isolde is a 2006 romantic drama film based on the medieval romantic legend of Tristan and Isolde. It was produced by Ridley Scott and Tony Scott, directed by Kevin Reynolds and stars James Franco and Sophia Myles, with an original music score composed by Anne Dudley...
."
The film has at least one major champion in Danél Griffin of Film as Art (for University of Alaska Southeast
University of Alaska Southeast
The University of Alaska Southeast is a regional university in the University of Alaska System. Its main campus is located in Juneau and it has extended campuses in Sitka and Ketchikan....
), who claims it "exists on the same plane of unadulterated genius as other mad, operatic visions like von Stroheim’s Greed
Greed (film)
Greed is a 1924 American dramatic silent film. It was directed by Erich von Stroheim and starring Gibson Gowland, Zasu Pitts, Jean Hersholt, Dale Fuller, Tempe Pigott, Sylvia Ashton, Chester Conklin, Joan Standing and Jack Curtis....
, Coppola’s Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard , of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces...
, Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo
Fitzcarraldo
Fitzcarraldo is a 1982 film written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski as the title character. It portrays would-be rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known as Fitzcarraldo in Peru, who has to pull a steamship over a steep hill in order to access a rich rubber...
, Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
, and Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America
Once Upon a Time in America
Once Upon a Time in America is a 1984 Italian epic crime film co-written and directed by Sergio Leone and starring Robert De Niro and James Woods. The story chronicles the lives of Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence in New York City's world of organized crime...
." He hails the film for its reinterpretation of the poem as "a study of [the] sharp contrast [between] our ego-inflated perception versus the more humbling reality of our existence. ... Gunnarsson and Berzins’ ultimate conclusion is that we are creatures of the world, not creatures above or below it, and for all of our theology and philosophy and courage and civility, there is Grendel’s severed arm nailed to our castle, and this trophy makes us feel good about ourselves. Its gory depravity representing our feelings of triumph transforms into one of the most revealing metaphors in all of literature."
Other critics are less forgiving. Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle is an American Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] [[film reviewer] and the author of two books on pre-[[Motion Picture Production Code|Hays Code]] Hollywood...
of the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
says, "Imagine the worst Deadwood
Deadwood (TV series)
Deadwood is an American Western drama television series created, produced and largely written by David Milch. The series aired on the premium cable network HBO from March 21, 2004, to August 27, 2006, spanning three 12-episode seasons. The show is set in the 1870s in Deadwood, South Dakota, before...
episode ever, and you'll get an idea of the general tone of Beowulf & Grendel, which is full of anachronistic cursing, tortured syntax, dark humor and lots of hairy, homely, filthy-looking people. The filmmakers get their point across in about 30 minutes, leaving 70 more for severed heads and period charm. There's no charm." Todd McCarthy
Todd McCarthy
Todd McCarthy is an American film critic. He wrote for Variety for 31 years as its chief film critic before being fired in 2010. He is currently a critic for The Hollywood Reporter....
of Variety (magazine)
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
agrees, writing, "Director Sturla Gunnarsson seems aware of the savagery intrinsic to the story, but is unable to mine it deeply, proving too genteel in the end to make a genuinely creepy or disturbing film." Liam Lacey of The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
concludes, "The movie is a lumbering and ludicrous mess."
See also
- List of historical drama films
- Late AntiquityLate AntiquityLate Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown proposed...
- Germanic Heroic AgeGermanic Heroic AgeThe Germanic Heroic Age, so called in analogy to the Heroic Age of Greek mythology, is the period of early historic or quasi-historic events reflected in Germanic heroic poetry.- Periodisation :...
- Old English languageOld English languageOld English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
External links
- Beowulf & Grendel Official Site
- Beowulf & Grendel at MetacriticMetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...